Today was another travel day, as we wound our way from Franz Josef to Abel Tasman, though some of the windiest roads I’ve ever seen! Before we headed inland to get to the norther coast, though, we went up the western coast and came across a spot called the Pancake Rocks. Why are they called “pancake rocks” you ask?? Take a look:

We got there at the high tide, which is perfect for viewing the flumes and geysers as the waves crash against these cliffs.

We headed inland to cut the northwest corner, and came across a suspension bridge, so we had to explore of course.

We spent the night in a camp­ground, and had the whole place to ourselves ? Very peaceful to wake up totally alone.

Next stop: Abel Tasman

…Mike

Today we spent a day hiking up the Franz Josef Glacier, twisting through ice blue crevasses, and squeezing through narrow ice archways. Here’s the glacier as we approached it from the scree:

Every day, the guides cut their own stairs into the glacier, which we needed even with the huge spike crampons over our boots.

If you look close, you can see the guides (in red) carving the steps. Here’s a bit more detail:

It wasn’t as cold as you’d think, as Franz Josef is one of only three tropical glaciers in the world (the second is Fox Glacier, about 20km south, and the third is in Argentina some­where). It was a very tiring day as we spend about 9 hours hiking in total.

These holes in the ice were all over the place, and our guide was very good at making sure we avoided them…the danger of falling in is that your body plugs the drain hole, and it fills with water and you drown. Once we heard that, we stayed clear…except me, because I’m an idiot.

We crawled through this one

We how have two days to get to Abel Tasman Park for our next wilderness adventure.

…Mike

After our cruises in fjordland, it was basi­cally a cannonball run north to get to Franz Josef for our glacier hike. We stopped a few times along the way to photo­graph some water­falls of course

We arrived in Franz Josef at 9pm in the pouring rain, dreading the thought of setting up our tent and getting soaked doing it…only to discover that we had in fact reserved a cabin for the night! Joy!

…Mike

We did an overnight cruise in Doubtful Sound (so named because Captain Cook thought it doubtful that he could sail out, should he sail in). This cruise is much more remote, and is possible only because of a road built to allow the construction of a power plant. We had to take a boat ride across a lake…

then a bus down the afore­men­tioned road (stopping to take in the view along the way)…

…to arrive at the sound itself. This cruise was a two-day event, so we had time to really explore the sound. We even had time to kayak

This was really neat…a cloud was rolling over a mountain in the distance.

Then it was out to the open ocean to view the seals.

We spent the night in a quite arm of the sound, which afforded a fantastic show as the setting sun lit up the peaks of the surrounding mountains.

The next morning started at 6am when the engines and the generator turned on After a great breakfast, we went into a secluded arm of the sound to expe­rience 5 minutes of total silence. It was surreal, and amazing how much sound the daily grind of city living covers up.

This is another one of the inter­esting features of the area: a tree avalanche:

The moun­tains have very little for vege­tation to hold on to, so when a tree gets knocked over for whatever reason, is smokes every­thing below it as it falls, leaving a huge scar down the side of the mountain. There were all kinds of these throughout both Milford and Doubtful.

Once we had completed the cruise, we were on our way north. This was a neat spot along the way, a protected grassland of some kind.

Next stop: glacier hiking

…Mike

We spent 6 hours cruising through Milford Sound in bright sunny weather, which was great…but also not so great. One of the biggest attrac­tions of Milford (and the biggest reason I was dying to go) are all the ephemeral water­falls that cover the steep walls of the sound whenever it rains. Fjordland gets up to 7 metres of rain annually, so I had high hopes, but the weather was cloud free, so we had to only imagine what it would have looked like. Hard to complain about nice weather, but I was hoping for rian. The nice weather was good for cruising though

These were taken as we stopped along the way. This is called the “Mirror Lakes” for obvious reasons

The water was super clear (this one’s for you Dad):

We did finally make it to Milford Sound (which is, tech­ni­cally, a fjord BTW). This was our ship for the day:

One of two permanent water­falls in Milford:

See the little ship at the bottom of the last photo? That’s for scale That is a 3 level cruise ship. This next waterfall was fun…the ship actually nosed right into it, soaking everyone on the foredeck

We even saw some seals

It’s a strange place. The natu­ralist on the ship described the unique porperties of the fjord. It is as deep as the cliff walls are high, and they go almost straight down…this is why we were able to get so close to the water’s edge and nose under the waterfall. It gets so much rain here every year, and it is so quickly drained into the fjord, that the salt water of the ocean and the fresh water of the rain never totally mix. This layer of fresh water over the salt has an effect on light pene­tration, leading to many vari­eties of deep-water vege­tation surviving quite close to the surface.

A faci­nating spot. We arrived back at our campsite as the sun was setting…

…and prepared for the next day’s cruise, this time at Doubtfull Sound.

…Mike